The Wolves of Arcadia
by Katrina Northman
Summary: All he's realised since the war ended is that the world is full of different kinds of monsters. Tom was the worst, he's gone and now others are rushing to fill his place. The tables have turned in favour of the light but nobody suffers any less, It is a vicious cycle he intends to break, even if he has to be a monster to do it. It was never about light or dark it's about balance.


Disclaimer: I do not own any recognisable characters storylines words etc

A/N: This is an au I haven't actually read all the books or watched all the movies. I resurrected some character some people won't be how they were in the books, probably no one will be how they were in the books.

Chapter One-The Circle is Broken

 _It was a war. Nobody seems to remember what that means. The truth is that no one is innocent in war, at the end no one on either side comes out clean of blood. They may justify it however they wish, they may cry that they were the victim but nothing will ever wash away the taint that stains them. He of all people knows that better than anyone. He has dreams now where he stands on a beach and watches death eaters he killed claw there way up the shore at him, where the waves wash red with blood and the damned try to drag him to hell. He dreams of temples built of bone where eyes stare accusingly at him from flames. He knows that no matter what an empire claims to stand for if it is an empire it was built with suffering. In war, all men are equal and equally monstrous. Once he was the-boy-who-lived but these days he knows that's a joke. He has never lived. Not as a child suffering alone in a cupboard, not as a teenager when people were killing and dying in his name, not as a man when he bled and suffered and caused others to bleed and suffer on a battlefield. He has never lived, he is either the boy-who-survived or the-man-who-wouldn't-die but to say that he lived was the greatest lie of all._

 _-Exert From the journal of Harrison Black Chapter Two of 'The Grey Empire'_

October 1998

Harry loves magic he truly does, but by Merlin, sometimes he really hates the magical world. Or more accurately perhaps he hates magical people who for as long as he has known them with the exclusion of Hermione and Snape they have all been completely lacking in logic or sense. They never learn. They didn't learn from Grindelwald's brutality forged under his Uncles cruel fist. They didn't learn from Riddles madness spawned in the unforgiving mercies of an orphanage and the horror of exorcisms. It's the same patterns and the same cycle repeated over and over again. They villainise children for wearing green and silver and then they wonder why these same children who they forsook at eleven turned into murders. Why they would follow a man who promised them glory and prestige a new and better world where they weren't automatically the bad guy. They are blind the magical people content to where the blindfold that the ministry or the prophet or Dumbledore or the next dark lord hands to them they do not see. But perhaps it is not magical people but people in general. Perhaps he is bitter and angry and tired. Because now that the war is done he sees that despite everything he bled and suffered for, despite the fact that he died, nothing has changed. He feels obligated to do something anything to change what he sees. He is not blind and he will make everyone else see to.

It starts with Theo Nott. After the war most of the Slytherins looked unhappy, there was something particularly empty about Nott, he was lost unmoored. Even when he had the patented 'Slytherin mask' on he seemed so detached from everyone else. Harry understood he knows that Theo's dad had been killed that he lost his mother in the first war. Theo was an orphan, it was a story that Harry himself was uncomfortably familiar with. The difference between Harry and Theo was that no one had bothered to apologise for Theo's loss. He decides that somebody ought to. So on a Tuesday morning, Harry decides to make a stand. Abruptly in the middle of Ron's blathering about Quidditch as if Harry is still even capable of caring about the sport after everything they have been through. He stands and marches resolutely towards the Slytherin table. The tables hush slightly as he walks past, and he hears whispers the Hufflepuff's wonder if he's finally going to get rid of "the traitorous snakes". The Hufflepuff's are in for a disappointment. By the time he stands in front of Theo the snakes are dead silent and tense. He feels guilty for that because they are tensed for attack. A few months ago they had been on opposite sides of the war, he had fought maybe even killed some of their friends and family and they had done the same. He can not blame them for being tense, but the war is over and it's time people realised that it's time that people accepted that.

He speaks solemnly in a tone uncommon of a Gryffindor he knows that his house is loud and brash. But this is important for Theo for himself. He's going to break the vicious circle right here right now and damn anyone for telling him he's wrong for doing so.

"I am sorry for what it's worth, which I know isn't much isn't near enough but you lost your father and for that I'm sorry"

For once the Slytherins are not so composed gaping at him as much as any Slytherin does. Nott schools his expression and narrows his eyes examining Harry like he expects it to be a trap.

"Why?" He demands "why are you sorry? My father was a murderer, wasn't he? Or a monster they keep telling me" the _like that makes it better_ goes unsaid but Harry hears it anyway.

"Those of us who fought on either side are all murderers, it doesn't matter why only that the blood does not wash off. I can't say if he was a monster but even if he was he was still your father still a man who loved his son. So I'm sorry that you lost him regardless of any crimes he may have committed" Harry breathes out he feels like he has changed something, like around him the universe has shifted slightly.

"I know better than anyone that an apology doesn't help but I thought that you deserved to know"

"Thank you," He says quietly, barely above a whisper.

He thinks Theo might be holding back tears there is a glassy look to his eyes if he is though Harry gives him the dignity of not bringing it up. He has learned that to a Slytherin image is important and that often emotion is a weakness, not in their house but he can only imagine what Ron might say if he found an upset Slytherin to understand why they keep their masks.

After a slight nod Harry leaves the hall, he hears it burst into sound behind him but he can hardly bring himself to care about gossip mongers these days. There are more important things than what people think of him or whether they like him.

 _"EVEN SPECTRES CAN TIRE"_

December 1998

It snowballs from there. The next is Pansy Parkinson. He was leaving transfiguration when he heard curses being thrown. He thinks about letting it go turning away but he's never been that person who can just turn a blind eye. That had been Albus's role and he's not exactly wanting to fill it in. So he rounded the corner to find a group of Gryffindor's and Hufflepuff's throwing curses at Pansy bound and bleeding on the ground there jeering and laughing at her and she is laying there and letting it happen because she was a Slytherin which meant that if she defended herself then she was the criminal, there is no way out for her. To say he was disgusted with the group was an understatement. He was incandescent with rage, absolutely apoplectic. Because this is not what he fought a war for this was the same thing that had occurred during Voldemort's reign as short as it was only the victim and the abuser were reversed.

"Enough!" he boomed. The group turned sharply to stare at him there expressions going slack and the sick demented glee melting off their faces. He was ashamed to see Ron among them, it made him sick that he would participate.

"But she's a death eater!" one of the Puff's cried. Pansy hadn't been had never borne the mark. She had just been a girl caught up in a war where both sides were perfectly happy allowing _children_ to become soldiers.

His lips pulled back in a sneer that Severus would have been proud of and he just about snarled at the girl who shrunk back terrified. "You think I give a shit? Newsflash the war is over" He spread his arms apart fingers wide "So why? Why the fuck do I feel like when I walk these halls I'm still living in the middle of a battlefield? Why is there a girl bound and bleeding on the floor? Why are you _torturing_ someone in the middle of a school?" They gaped at him and he gripped his wand tightly.

"Has there not been enough blood that you are so eager to shed more? All you create is more suffering"

He unceremoniously shoves past the shocked crowd angry and bitter and resentful bitter and resentful that he fought a war only for everything to remain the same. He had not died for the status quo, he had suffered for nothing to change. Gently as he can he picks Pansy up off the floor and carries her to the Infirmary. She thanks him quietly her head lolled limply on his shoulder barely hanging on to consciousness. His mouth is set in a grim line, it should never have come to this. Deep inside his heart, a spark ignites a dire that had nearly burned out reignites and he promises to himself that he will not let things remain as they are.

 _"LIES HE HAS TOLD HIMSELF: HIS HUMANITY IS THE GREATEST BURDEN HE WILL BARE"_

By the time he gets to the infirmary Pansy is out cold and his rage has burned out cold resentment left in its place. When Madame Pomphrey sees the girl in her arms her expression is just as grim as his. When he lies her on the bed and she drops limply like a ragdoll there is suddenly burning behind his eyes because no matter what Pansy had not deserved this. When the scans start showing up the damage done he feels like throwing up and he actually might.

If they had not stopped she could have died.

Silently he pulls himself together and heads for the dungeons, Pansy will want her friends when she wakes up it is the least he can do for her. He casts a scourgify on the way there to get the blood of his clothes but he can still smell it and he bends over in the hallway and forces his body to stop the need to dry heave. He had seen worse in the war but somehow this is the more vile crime because that had been war and this was peace that had been soldiers and fighters and battle. This was one girl and twenty others who had the gall to claim that she was the evil one. He shoves his emotions down hard and continues on, still, he has to take a deep breath when he get's to Slughorn's office to ask for her friends. It's Daphne Greengrass and Malfoy that come out of the common room. He wants to turn away when Daphne cries but he forces himself not to.

He has to explain what happened to them to Slughorn and he wants to be sick all over again. Because he knows that nothing will happen to the students that did this. Daphne is shaking and Draco's face is cold and hard and god why? why!? is he still telling people that their friends are in the hospital the war was supposed to be over?

Draco hangs back a bit from Greengrass as they walk back towards the infirmary.

"Thank you for helping her and for telling us you- didn't have to do either"

"Please don't thank me. I should never have had to do this, No one should be suffering like this"

Draco looks at him searchingly and nods once. He understands the fire in Draco's eyes is a mirror of his. Draco catches up to Daphne as they both rush to Pansy and he stands alone in the hallway and wonders how it had come to this.

In the following days, he holds a speech at dinner in the great hall. He tells them the war is over, he asks them to set the anger aside. They turn their faces away and he knows they will not change. Pansy's attackers are not punished and more are attacked even the first years. He continues to intervene and as a result, he has become friends with most of the Slytherin eight years they all walk in groups never a kid in green and silver seen alone. When he can he walks with them prowling the halls angry and tense the lion defender of snakes. He comes to wands with a few of the more persistent offenders. McGonagall does nothing the teachers turn away, nothing changes and the fire that has ignited itself boils in his blood. This has to stop.

 _"IT'S LESS LIKE BITING OF MORE THEN HE CAN CHEW AND MORE LIKE DISLOCATING HIS WHOLE JAW"_

January 1999

He becomes persona non grata in his own house which is fine because the only Gryffindor he can stand to be around is Neville who spends more time with Luna in Ravenclaw. Hermione spends her time in the library turning a blind eye and studiously ignoring everything that happens around her. The less said about Ron the better considering the number of nearly violent altercations they had in the common room and the fistfight that they had in the great hall, it's better for everyone that he spends his time with the Slytherins. He hangs out in their common room and spends about four nights a week sleeping in their dorm when Ron changes the common room password and doesn't and conveniently forgets to pass on the message. It is one such evening when he is lazing on Draco's bed that the first parts of a plan begin to form in his mind.

Harry heaves a deep and melancholy sigh and knows that besides him Draco is probably rolling his eyes because Draco knows that he only sighs like that when he is going to bring up something that's been bothering him for ages but also has a much easier solution then Harry ever would have come up with.

"I don't want to be Harry Potter anymore" he states. Being Harry Potter was awful in retrospect it was not necessarily worse than be Draco Malfoy or anyone else but being Harry Potter was a particular type of awful that he was completely sick of.

Draco pinches the bridge of his nose if he'd realised becoming Harry's friend would have involved so much introspection he may not have sat down at the library table but it was clearly too late now.

"Why?"

"Harry Potter doesn't belong to me anymore. He doesn't have any options and I'm sick of the way that my life is still being run by everyone else, Harry Potter was never a real person he was an orphan, an icon, a weapon and a hero but I don't think he ever got to be a person, never a kid and never anything after that, I died in the war and I feel like whoever I am now it isn't Harry Potter"

Draco stayed quiet for a second, he thought he understood these days the only people who called him Draco were his friends and everyone else called him Draconis or Lord Malfoy.

"Change your name"

Harry breathes out nods his head, he wonders what his new name will be. What will grow out of the ashes of his old self? The fire in his heart burns away the last of the boy he was all that is left is who he will become.

 _IS IT MURDER WHEN YOU KILL THE GHOST OF YOURSELF_


End file.
